Professional Self Esteem of Teacher Candidates for Information Technology Preservice Teachers

Abstract

This research project aims to determine the professional self esteem of IT preservice teachers, and uses both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to accomplish this goal. The quantitative data were obtained from a 30-item professional self esteem scale that was developed by Aricak (1999) and the qualitative data were compiled from user blogs. While a t test and one-sided ANOVA tests were used for independent sample survey methods to analyse qualitative data, the analysis of quantitative data was performed by figurative (descriptive) techniques. The participants of the qualitative part of the research consists of 208 freshman students who attend the Computer and Educational Technology Departments of four different state universities. The quantitative part consists three students from each of the four universities. According to the findings of this research, one's professional self esteem does not depend on gender or the ranking of his or her Department; however, it strongly varies from one university to the other. Moreover, both internal and external factors play a role for designation of professional self esteem of the IT preservice teachers.